


Pas d'Ombre

by anthean



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bisexual Character, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Homophobic Language, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Lesbian Character, M/M, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 08:22:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2461391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthean/pseuds/anthean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eponine is a dancer in the corps de ballet at the Ballet National de Paris, recovering from injury, continually passed over for promotion, and furious at her lack of achievement despite the promise of her early career. Worse, her old classmate Cosette becomes the company’s new darling almost as soon as she’s hired. Eponine tries to ignore her. But Cosette is persistent, and Eponine soon finds herself convinced to use her newly-discovered talent for choreography to create a dance for Marius and Cosette to perform at the company’s student gala. Along the way, she grows closer to Cosette, finally gets over Marius, and finds a little peace for herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pas d'Ombre

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to tumblr user afamiliardog for beta reading, general cheerleading, and putting up with my frustrated afternoon texts from coffeeshops. Thanks also to tumblr user judiblanch for answering France Questions. Finally, thanks to Clenster for the [incredible art](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2460548)!
> 
> Content warnings for past abuse, implied current emotional abuse, and homophobic language. Most of this is because Gillenormand is a horrible person, and is not explicit. Please ask if you need more details. The primary pairing in this fic is Cosette/Eponine; Marius/Courfeyrac is a background ship. Finally, although I took ballet classes for over a decade and am generally a huge ballet nerd, I’ve never danced professionally and don’t reeeeally know how ballet companies work. Any inaccuracies in this fic are a result of me generalizing from my own past experience or just making things up.

Eponine is sitting by the mirror, wrapping paper tape around her left big toe, when Floreal plops down beside her and plucks the roll of tape from her hand.

“The new girl’s starting today,” Floreal says. “Have you seen her? No one’s ever heard of her, but she’s supposed to be incredible.”

Eponine snatches the tape back, pulls out a length and rips it off with her teeth before she answers. “I was on medical leave when she auditioned—for my back, remember?” she says. Floreal winces and nods. Eponine wraps the tape around the ball of her foot, right over the spot where her pointe shoes rub blisters. “I don’t even know her name.”

“Her name’s Euphrasie Fauchelevent. I know! What a weird name, right?” Floreal adjusts the flowered clip she’s wearing in her hair. “But she wouldn’t have been hired if she weren’t great.”

“Because what this company needs is another new hire to take roles away from people who deserve them,” Eponine says.

Floreal smacks her lightly. “Ponine, she’ll start in the corps, like everyone else.”

“You know how Gillenormand is with his favorites, it’s inevitable. Still, I suppose someone has to play Court Lady Seven and Village Girl Thirteen, although I wish it didn’t always have to be me.”

“Eponine!”

“It’s true.” Eponine presses the last piece of tape into place and begins to fold paper towels to use as padding inside her pointe shoes.

“Well, Gillenormand has to notice us eventually,” Floreal says, not mentioning, Eponine notices, that after an entire summer of parading herself in front of the Artistic Director she’d been cast as Swanhilde in last season’s production of _Coppélia_. “And when he does, I’ll—ooh! That’s her!” She flops into a side split, rests her elbows on the floor, and stares unabashedly.

Standing in the studio doorway is a woman about Eponine’s age. Euphrasie is _tiny_ , slender and fine-boned even for a ballet dancer, light brown hair already pulled back into a bun. She’s smiling, and her smile grows when Courfeyrac bounds forward to introduce himself, taking her by the arm and leading her around to the other dancers. Eponine can’t make out Euphrasie’s words from across the studio, but she catches the timbre of her voice, a few light notes like a slowly-waking dawn bird. They pluck at something in her memory; she thinks of a hallway, a small figure half turned away, but can’t place the memory, or decide if it’s a memory at all.

Euphrasie and Courfeyrac are approaching Eponine’s corner now, and she stands to greet them.

“This is Eponine and Floreal,” Courfeyrac says. “Ponine, Flora, this is Euphrasie.”

“But please call me Cosette,” Euphrasie says, and Eponine freezes.

 _Cosette_ , after all these years! For a wild moment she hopes that this is some other Cosette, but no, Eponine recognizes her now. “So glad to meet you,” Eponine manages, and hopes, though it’s irrational, that Cosette doesn’t realize who Eponine is. But Cosette’s eyes are friendly still, and if she’s recognized Eponine nothing shows in her face.

“How long have you been with the company, Eponi—“ Cosette trails off, staring at something over Eponine’s shoulder. She walks away without a word of explanation, transfixed, and Eponine turns. 

_Oh._

_Marius_.

He stands against the barre, wide dark eyes staring back at Cosette, and as she reaches him his mouth falls slightly open.

“My name is Marius Pontmercy,” he says, his usually stiff voice quavering.

“And I’m Cosette.”

“ _What_ ,” Floreal whispers.

Marius bends his head down towards Cosette, leaning into her; their bodies make a graceful converging angle. They exchange a few murmured words, and then Cosette laughs, delighted and quick. She slides into plié arabesque, unfurling her arms in lines that make Eponine’s heart ache with envy, then steps into a soutenu turn. “Do you know _Manon_?” she asks. Marius’ reply is unintelligible, but he steps smoothly up to partner her, slotting into the space at her side like there’s nowhere else he could possibly be.

It shouldn’t be good. Cosette and Marius have never danced together before—they only met less than a minute ago, Eponine thinks, incredulous—and neither of them is warmed up enough to attempt the lifts or more dramatic extensions, so they clutch at each other while Cosette laughs and Marius’ dark cheeks blush even darker. There’s no music, and Cosette’s bare feet squeak on the marley floor. It shouldn’t be good, but Cosette and Marius are arresting to watch, unpolished as they are. They spiral around each other, Cosette breaking away and returning and Marius always there to catch her again, their hands brushing each other’s hips and shoulders like old partners, uncomfortably intimate. 

Eponine wants to look and can’t bear to look, wants to hide and can’t move her legs. Soon Marius and Cosette are embracing, arms twined around each other’s bodies, until Marius hisses a breath Eponine can hear from across the studio and jumps back.

“Don’t kiss me!” he says, quiet but not quiet enough, and creaks out an awkward laugh.

Oh, of course. _Manon_.

“I would never,” Cosette says, stepping back. Beside Eponine, Courfeyrac swears softly and walks out to the center of the studio where Marius and Cosette are hovering, not sure what to do with each other but unwilling to separate. He stands between them and slings an arm around Marius’ shoulders, smiling at Cosette and swiftly drawing her into a conversation. The rest of the company, quiet while Marius and Cosette were dancing, begins chattering again, a little louder and more frantic than before.

The thought of taking class after whatever had happened between Cosette and Marius is almost too much to contemplate, and Eponine sinks back to the floor and picks up her pointe shoes. Her gaze falls on the studio door, and a chill shivers through her, raising the hairs on her arms. Monsieur Gillenormand, the company’s artistic director and Marius’ grandfather, stands half-shadowed in the doorway, staring at Marius and Cosette. He eyes them for a long moment, very still, then turns and walks away.

“What the _hell_ ,” Floreal says.

Eponine looks down, finishes putting on her pointe shoes. She can’t think of anything worth saying.

Perhaps due to Eponine’s preoccupation, class passes extremely slowly. Eponine’s body feels like a strange machine she doesn’t know how to operate: she nearly kicks Floreal during barre, and she stumbles through an easy combination of piqué turns she would ordinarily have no trouble with. She’s grateful when the two hours are over and she can leave, throwing her water bottle into her bag and heading for the door as soon as Basque, the instructor, dismisses them.

But Cosette catches up to her in the hallway. “Eponine,” she calls, and Eponine turns slowly to face her. Cosette’s hair floats around her face where it’s falling out of her bun in pale wisps. Her cheeks are pink and shiny with sweat, and she’s thrown an old gray sweatshirt with the neck cut out over her leotard. “Eponine,” she says again. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry for running off earlier, when we were speaking. I don’t…I’m not usually like that. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She looks down at her feet, then smiles at Eponine.

There is, Eponine thinks, an odd mismatch between Cosette’s features: her smile is genuine, and pulls at a resonant thread of joy deep within Eponine, but her eyes, taken independent of her smile, are sad somehow, cool and still. “It’s nothing,” Eponine says, then, “You and Marius dance beautifully together,” because if she picks at a wound long enough maybe it’ll stop hurting, and she’s proud when her voice is only a little wooden.

“Thank you,” Cosette says, flushing pinker. “I’ve never—but he’s wonderful, I’ve never felt that way before, with anyone,” and she seems ready to drift away in contemplation of Marius’ wonders before shaking herself and stepping nearer. “I also wanted to ask—I knew an Eponine once. She…actually, her parents ran the school where I first trained. Eponine Thenardier. Are you—”

“Yes,” says Eponine, and lets the admission burst out of her like bile. Of course she couldn’t dance in the same company as Cosette and expect Cosette never to recognize her. She feels a little better. “I remember you, too. Or, well, I didn’t—is your name really Euphrasie?—but when I heard _Cosette_ it all came back, sudden.”

Cosette unpins her hair, shaking her head to make it fall in twists around her shoulders. She nods to herself, her precise ballerina posture stiffening. “And are, are your parents well?” she asks. Her voice is thick, and guilt squirms in Eponine’s gut.

“I don’t know,” Eponine says, too loud for the quiet corridor. “I haven’t spoken to them in three years.” The words settle in the air between them, and Cosette draws an awkward breath, like a near-drowned swimmer sucking in the first gasp of air after a long struggle.

“Thank you,” Cosette says fervently, then appears to realize how strange that must sound. “For understanding, I mean. Thank you,” she says, then turns back to the studio and disappears within, engulfed in light and laughter and leaving Eponine alone with her thoughts in the hallway.

She’s not proud of it, but Eponine tries to ignore Cosette after that, brushing off Cosette’s tentative offers of companionship and keeping to herself during class. It gets harder as the months pass and Cosette becomes more and more obviously Gillenormand’s favorite. He casts her as the Nymph in _L'après-midi d'un faune_ opposite Courfeyrac, and reviews singing Cosette’s praises begin rolling in the day after the first performance.

Eponine slouches into the studio the next day to find Prouvaire standing poised atop the piano bench, waving a newspaper and performing a dramatic reading. “ _Fauchelevent is ethereal and wraithlike, leaping so airily she hardly seems to touch the ground. As the sixth nymph, she embodies all the virginal tenderness of the sylvan spring_ ,” he proclaims, wiggling his eyebrows and leering.

Cosette, laughing so hard she can barely stand, attempts to climb the bench and snatch the newspaper away; Prouvaire fends her off with a foot.

“They have also bestowed upon you the name _l’Alouette_ ,” Prouvaire finishes. He hops down from the bench and presents the newspaper to Cosette with a bow. “Due to your _soaring mastery of lyrical expression_ and _precise, brilliant technique_.”

Courfeyrac wraps his arms around Cosette from behind and rests his chin on her shoulder, though he has to bend nearly double to reach. “May I pluck your head, mon alouette gentil?” he asks, and half the company collapses with laughter. Even Eponine joins in.

When Cosette is promoted to première danseuse after a scant eight months of dancing with the company there are a few angry whispers around the studio, but Cosette is so sweet and genuine that it’s hard for anyone to dislike her for long, and besides, they all know that Gillenormand plays favorites. Even Eponine, if pressed, would admit that she doesn’t dislike Cosette, only wishes that Cosette weren’t suddenly everywhere, her bright laugh trickling through Eponine’s carefully-feigned indifference and her brilliant smile and sad eyes sticking in Eponine’s mind no matter how she tries to think of other things.

It’s hard, though, when Cosette and Marius continue to dance together. Although they’re far from regular partners given Cosette’s short time with the company, they’re both obviously happiest when dancing with each other. They fall quickly into a comfortable, familiar style more suited to a partnership of many years. Eponine looks away, stakes out a space at the barre far away from Cosette, pretends not to see the thoughtful glances Cosette sends her way. It’s not a solution, Eponine knows, and one day she’ll have to address it, but right now she’s content to keep that problem far off in the future.

[One night, about a year after Cosette joins the company, Eponine stays late after the day’s last rehearsal](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2460548). She walks through the building’s darkened corridors, trying door handles until she finds an unlocked studio and slips inside. She’s had a snatch of music stuck in her head all day, something rippling and minor key that she can’t quite place, and with it the barest whisper of an idea for a sequence of steps. It’s late already, and she still has to break in a new pair of pointe shoes when she gets home—her current shoes are getting soft in the toe box, and she wants a fresh pair for rehearsal tomorrow—but if she doesn’t spend a few minutes in the studio working this music out she won’t be able to sleep tonight for thinking about it.

The studio is dark, her reflection eerie and shadowed in the mirror. Eponine doesn’t bother turning the lights on; once her eyes adjust the streetlights outside provide ample light. She does open a few of the windows, closing her eyes as the cool night air drifts through the studio. She thinks for a moment, letting the music build in her head and tell her what movement wants to go with it, then moves to the center of the studio.

She lunges to the side as far as she can, nearly overbalancing, then pivots on one leg before straightening up and lifting her other leg in développé à la seconde. She lets the weight of her leg push her over until she’s forced to either take a step or fall, and turns the fall into a roll that takes her nearly to the edge of the studio. Her legs tangle underneath her; she sorts them out and stands, then drops to the floor again, stands more gracefully this time, drops again and flows to her feet and into a halt-skip of little jumps that carry her lightly up the studio’s diagonal, downstage right to upstage left.

Once there, Eponine pauses for a minute, waiting to feel where the movement wants to go next. Falling and standing so many times has made her back ache dully in the way that heralds worse pain when she wakes up tomorrow, and she adds “20 minutes on the floor with an ice pack” to her list of tasks for the evening. A few ivy leaves peek around the edges of the studio window, and they glow in the streetlight. The mingled hum of cars and voices drifts up from the street below, but the music is still trickling through Eponine’s head, and she barely hears them.

When she feels ready she turns to begin again, and gasps when she sees a dark figure in the doorway.

“I’m so sorry!” the figure says, flicking on the light. Eponine blinks at the yellowy fluorescent burst, and as her eyes clear she recognizes Cosette, looking a little bleary-eyed herself.

“Oh, you gave me a start,” Eponine says, hand clutching at her chest where her heart pounds. “Did you want something?”

“I thought you’d seen me,” Cosette says. “I came in because I thought I’d left my sweater here, but then I didn’t want to interrupt.” Cosette grimaces. “Clearly I did a poor job. Was that your own choreography, what you were working on? It was beautiful.”

“It was,” Eponine says, “my own, I mean.” She walks to the mirror and digs in her bag, finally pulling out her water bottle and taking a few long gulps. She’s not really thirsty—she hasn’t been dancing long enough—but anything is better than standing across the studio from Cosette, staring. “It wasn’t anything, really, I just had the steps in my head and needed to get them out before I left for the night. Would you like to see, in better light? I’ll show you,” she says, and flings herself into the steps before Cosette can answer. She swoops through them faster than she has before, using her head and upper body to shift her weight in more dramatic directions, and ends up nearly tripping over her own feet a few times, a headlong tumble of fall-catch, fall-catch. It’s a nice effect, Eponine thinks, and she wonders if she could duplicate it intentionally, or if she would lose the uncontrolled feeling.

She finishes facing upstage, and turns and walks back to the center of the room, straightening her tank top instead of meeting Cosette’s eyes. “That’s all I have,” she says. Maybe Cosette will leave now, satisfied.

No such luck. “I love it!” Cosette exclaims. “You came up with that just now? Here—” she drops her bag and toes off her sneakers. “Will you teach it to me? If you don’t have to leave?”

Eponine opens her mouth to refuse—she’s been at the studio for hours, and she’s spent a lot of energy in the past few months avoiding Cosette—but then thinks of her small, silent, apartment, thinks about putting salve on her bruises alone, of reheated leftovers for dinner, darning the platforms and cutting the shanks of her new pointe shoes, doing her physical therapy exercises in her living room before she falls into exhausted sleep, and abruptly she wants to delay going home as long as possible.

And Cosette, for all she’s loved by the other dancers, for all she gossips with the pianists and laughs at Joly’s terrible jokes, for all her grand _something_ with Marius—Cosette usually goes home from rehearsal alone.

“Yeah, all right,” Eponine says. “Come out here.”

“Awesome, thank you!” Cosette says, jogging out to the center of the studio. She bounces on her toes a few times, either out of excitement or the need to warm up her ankles.

“Okay, it starts like this. Slide, swivel, développé, as slow as you can,” Eponine says, demonstrating each step as she names it. Behind and a little to the side, Cosette marks the steps along with her. “Then fall, and roll—”

“Wait,” Cosette says, “do the roll again? All right, I see,” nodding as Eponine demonstrates the roll, slower this time. “Like this?” She drops into the roll, spinning lightly across the floor, but gets stuck near the end and has to scramble awkwardly to her feet. “That’s harder than it looks,” she says, apparently delighted that she’s failed to immediately master the roll.

“You need to use your arms more, coming out of it, to get power for your rotation,” Eponine says. She walks around behind Cosette. “Here, try it again.” When Cosette falls to the floor Eponine runs along behind her. Just as Cosette is about to lose her momentum Eponine puts a hand on her left shoulderblade and pushes it gently forward, and Cosette’s left arm snaps around in a perfect arc and carries her out of the roll and to her feet.

Cosette spins around again, caught up in her own inertia, and grabs at Eponine’s shoulders to steady herself. “I did it!” she crows, and Eponine feels an answering smile bloom on her face even as she steps out of Cosette’s careless embrace.

“You haven’t done it yet,” Eponine says. “Come on, you’ve only learned half of it,” and she leads Cosette through the complicated half-finished line of little jumps that take them up the studio’s diagonal. When Cosette has them memorized (and Eponine, by necessity, has turned them from half-developed ideas to a concrete sequence of steps) they dance the entire combination together. It lasts maybe three counts of eight, and Cosette still sighs to herself as she stumbles through the roll, but they grin at each other as they come to a halt in the studio’s upstage left corner, breathing hard.

“You need to do something with this,” Cosette says. Her hair, not tied up very well in the first place, is falling out of its ponytail; she pushes it out of her face with the heel of her hand. “This is too good for a late night alone in a studio. People need to see what you can do, Eponine.”

“What would be the point?” Eponine says. All the happiness she’d found, dancing her own steps and teaching them to an appreciative audience, is leeching out of her. “Where could I perform it?”

“Well, performance doesn’t have to be the goal,” Cosette says, but she looks puckish, like she can barely hold in a delightful secret. “If you wanted to, though, at the gala this summer, the student gala, for the company’s school. Gillenormand has been saying that he wants some of the company dancers to perform as well,” and it’s true, Gillenormand has been making noises about the student gala for weeks, but thus far none of the company dancers had been asked to perform. “It would be great to have a piece in the program both choreographed and danced by members of the company.”

Eponine looks away, takes a breath, tries to quash the hope rising in her chest. It will never happen, she tells herself, Gillenormand will never say yes, but now that the idea’s in her mind she can’t get it out, can’t stop imagining _choreographed by Eponine Thenardier_ typed in crisp letters in the program, can’t stop the applause roaring in her ears. She can do this, and then people will _understand_ , they’ll _know_ …

“Let’s do it,” she says. Cosette spins around in happiness; her hair gives up entirely and falls from its tie, fanning out around her face. “Wait,” Eponine says. “Gillenormand. Will he say yes?”

“We’ll convince him,” Cosette says, and Eponine is just starting to wonder when this became a _we_ when Cosette adds, “I mean, I don’t want to assume. But I would be honored to dance for you, if you don’t have someone else in mind. And you obviously don’t have to decide now.” She looks at the floor; Eponine, following her glance, realizes that Cosette had only taken off her shoes earlier, and has been dancing this whole time in mismatched blue and purple socks.

“No, I want you to,” Eponine says in a rush, not sure where this sudden feeling of certainty is coming from. “I mean, this was your idea, you should be a part of it, and, you know, Gillenormand is much more likely to listen to you, he is.”

Cosette steps back. “Oh,” she says, “well. You may be right.” A small smile curls across her face and fades away again. “He’ll have some free time next Tuesday, I think.” Eponine does not think about how ridiculous it is that Cosette knows Gillenormand’s schedule so well. “Shall we go talk to him then, after company class?”

Eponine takes a deep breath, lets it out slow, thinks about what she and Cosette are planning. The worst Gillenormand can do is say no, and she _wants_ that applause.

“Yes,” she says. “Let’s talk to him. We’ll do this,” and lets herself be blinded by Cosette’s smile.

Sitting in Monsieur Gillenormand’s office with Cosette the next day, Eponine doesn’t feel nearly so sanguine. The Artistic Director’s office is swaddled in thick carpets, the windows hung with heavy curtains, and an unlit chandelier lurks in the dark hardwood heights of the ceiling. Gillenormand’s desk is an ancient edifice of shining wood, the feet carved into formidable claws, and Gillenormand himself, enthroned behind it, is no less edificial and ancient. Eponine sneaks a look at Cosette, feeling like she’s sixteen and in trouble at school again, but Cosette is perfectly relaxed, her hands folded neatly on her crossed knees.

“So,” Gillenormand says, and Eponine’s attention snaps back to him. “My Cosette tells me you have a proposal for me, Mademoiselle…Thenardier, was it? Yes. Well then, let’s hear what you’ve got to say.” And he leans back in his chair, making the leather creak, and looks expectantly at Eponine.

So Eponine tells him. She lays out their plan swiftly, trying to curb her tendency to ramble while also not giving Gillenormand a chance to interrupt; Cosette makes the occasional soft comment, but otherwise lets Eponine do the talking. When Eponine finally winds her speech to a close Gillenormand hasn’t moved from his pose behind the desk, and for a moment there’s a horrible silence in which Eponine is sure she’s about to be thrown out of the office.

“Well, you want to choreograph a piece for my student gala,” Gillenormand finally says. “With my dear Cosette dancing for you, how enterprising. Mademoiselle Thenardier—no, your name is Eponine, isn’t it. Eponine, hah! What a name! Eponine, do you know the history of the Ballet National de Paris?”

Eponine opens her mouth to reply, but Gillenormand rolls right over her. “Of course you don’t,” he says, “young people these days never know anything about where they come from, it’s reprehensible. My great-grandfather founded this company in 1844, the finest company in Paris, by my slipper! One hundred and seventy years of unbroken classical tradition.” Gillenormand smacks his lips in satisfaction. “Do you know, training at our school is a free ticket to a job at any company you like. We’re not some backwater academy that teaches ballet only in name, that accepts anyone who can pay. We have _standards_ here. The Americans are always trying to steal our dancers, they snap them up whenever they can, the vultures, the _American Ballet Theater_ , the _San Francisco Ballet_ —pfft, God knows their own dancers are thugs, they’re all thugs, they might as well be men clomping around the stage. And you know Nureyev, Rudolf Nureyev, choreographed for our gala! Hah! He visited in 1973! Don’t look so shocked, young mamselle, he was a close personal friend of mine, although he wanted to fuck me, of course. A fine dancer, even though he was a faggot. What are you, next to that legacy? Why should I give you a chance?”

“Because I know I’m good enough,” Eponine says, which is the wrong answer even if Gillenormand had wanted one. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t think so either, since you’re the one who hired me in the first place.” Her breath is coming fast, and she may have just made an enormous, career-ending, mistake, but the one thing Eponine has always liked about herself is her inability to resist a confrontation.

Gillenormand turns bright, angry, red. “Insolent child,” he cries. “This is how you talk to your employer? This is how you show your gratitude? You and my blood-drinker of a grandson, ungrateful, the both of you! Ah, Marius, though! With Marius I know where it comes from. His bandit father, that criminal, that beast who stole my daughter away from me. I wanted a son who could carry on managing this company, first in my old age and then when I am dead and unremembered, and what did I get? A brigand! An unemployed hooligan who carried away my daughter and poisoned Marius against me. You look shocked, but it happens in even the best families. And now my grandson will dance in my company but he won’t call me ‘father’. This one little thing, and he would have me wrapped around his finger, and he knows it, the wretch. Perhaps my Cosette will be a good influence, but more likely it is too late. You listen to me, all of Marius’ bad habits come from his father. So! My grandson has an excuse for his behavior, even though he was raised with me, among civilized people, but I don’t know about you, Mademoiselle Thenardier. So-called Eponine! Well, and you want to choreograph, and you want to be rude to me. You young people make me spit. Get out of my office, go to rehearsal, go do your job. You as well, Cosette my dear.”

Eponine’s heart sinks. “Thank you, monsieur,” she says, hating him, and gathers up her bag. Beside her, Cosette is doing the same, and they walk together to the door.

“Mademoiselle Thenardier,” Gillenormand says, just as Eponine is pushing open the door. When she turns, he’s engrossed in a stack of papers and doesn’t bother looking at her. “You’ll begin rehearsal on Friday. Speak to Nicolette about scheduling studio time. And not a solo, no, not for Cosette. A duet, a pas de deux, for Cosette and Marius, I think. Yes, that would be much better. I’ll want to see your complete piece in eight weeks. Goodbye, Mademoiselle Thenardier. 

Eponine stands frozen and staring; Cosette grabs her by the elbow and pulls her out of the office, shutting the door behind them.

“You did it!” Cosette exclaims.

“That was not how I was expecting that conversation to end,” Eponine says slowly. All the adrenaline is running out of her, and her limbs hang like lead. Her head is pounding. _Marius. A pas de deux._ It’s horrible. “God, he’s awful. How does Marius bear it?” she asks, and realizes in that moment that she’d never considered it before.

“How do any of us bear it?” Cosette asks, wrinkling her nose. “Not well, I think. I’ll tell Marius about the piece. I doubt Gillenormand will remember. Do you have rehearsal this afternoon?”

“Not for another half hour.”

“Well then, get going,” Cosette says. “Rehearsals start on Friday, and you still have to pick your music.”

On Friday, Eponine pauses with her hand on the studio door and takes a breath to steady herself. She’s got a notebook full of choreography in her bag—scrawled strings of dance terms and, when she had an idea for a step that had no name, little contorted stick figures, clumsy attempts to translate the images in her head onto paper. She probably won’t need it: most of the steps are deep in her body, wrapped around her legs and sunk into her gut, but it might be useful to have a reference. Nicolette had assigned her the company’s smallest studio for a rehearsal space, although Eponine knows that there are larger ones available at this time. It’s all right. A small studio is fine, if it’s her own choreography being danced inside it.

A little calmer, she pushes open the studio door and enters. Cosette hasn’t arrived yet, but Marius has; he’s standing at the barre, back to the door, stretching his calves.

“Hello, Marius,” Eponine says.

Marius turns and gives her a quick smile. “Hello,” he says. “Cosette not here yet?”

Of course everything is about Cosette, Eponine thinks, then stops herself. After her conversation with Gillenormand earlier in the week, she has a much better picture of the dynamics of the company, and Gillenormand is a more deserving target of her ire. “No, not yet,” she says, dropping her bag by the mirror and taking off her cardigan. “How are you?”

“All right,” Marius says. He puts a leg up on the barre to continue stretching, then takes it down again and walks over to Eponine. “I wanted to say, I think this is a really good idea, and I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with.”

Marius doesn’t look happy, though; he looks like he’s going to be sick, and Eponine says so. Marius walks back to the barre, shoulders tight. “Ordinarily, I have lunch with my grandfather during this time,” he says, “so obviously I’m glad. I would be happy to be doing anything else.”

“What a compliment that is to me, I’m sure,” Eponine says, unable to help herself, and Marius jerks like he hadn’t even considered how his words would sound to Eponine. “Surely he can’t be that bad,” even though she _knows_ how awful Gillenormand is, can hardly bear to be employed by him, and Gillenormand barely knows she exists.

“He is that bad,” Marius spits. When Eponine looks, he’s shaking. “You have no idea.” Marius’ face is frozen in a haughty mask, mouth pursed and nose flared.

Eponine stands for a moment, horrified and still angry, maybe at herself for pushing, but also a little at Marius for being pushed. This is her father talking through her, she realizes distantly, congealing on her tongue from long years ago to urge her to press, to _push_ , to smell a weakness and crush it, and it disgusts her.

The rattle of the door latch is loud in the silence between them, and Eponine manages to gasp a hasty “I’m sorry!” before the door opens and Cosette enters. She looks between Eponine and Marius and frowns, but doesn’t comment, just drops her bag by Eponine’s with a light greeting.

“I forgot to ask earlier,” Cosette says. “Pointe shoes?”

“No, you’ll both be barefoot,” Eponine says, and Cosette tosses her pointe shoes back into her bag with a sigh of relief. Marius takes his shoes off as well and kicks them over to the mirror. He’s still angry, Eponine can tell, but Cosette’s presence seems to have calmed him, or at least reminded him not to start shouting in front of an audience 

“All right, come on out to the center,” Eponine says. She considers explaining that she’s never formally choreographed before, but dismisses the thought—Cosette already knows, and Marius will figure it out soon enough. Besides, she’s tired of apologizing for herself. “Marius, I don’t know if Cosette told you, but we’re working on a fairly tight deadline. The gala is at the end of the summer, and Gillenormand wants to see the completed piece in eight weeks, so we’ll have to work quickly. Today I’m just going to teach you a few sequences of steps and once you’ve learned them we’ll start putting them together into a piece. Any questions?”

“You still haven’t picked your music, have you?” asks Cosette.

“Don’t rush my process,” Eponine says. “Now, you’ll start upstage left, and—oh-” She runs to her bag and pulls out her notebook. As Marius and Cosette trot obediently to the upstage left corner of the studio, Eponine remembers being six years old and bossing her sister around, pretending to be a great lady. Their kitten had been her “daughter”, she remembers, stifling a laugh, and with that all her nervousness drops away. Just like dressing up the kitten, she thinks, and begins.

The dance takes shape slowly, more slowly than Eponine would like given their deadline, but she knows that it won’t go faster if she pushes. Instead, she forces herself to work one rehearsal at a time, inventing the steps at night in her apartment and teaching them to Marius and Cosette the next day, feeling her way through the rehearsal process. As the piece develops, it turns mournful and contemplative, a study of two bodies orbiting each other, heavy and slow. Marius has no trouble carrying Cosette, letting Cosette collapse on him and taking her weight, but Eponine asks Cosette to support Marius as well, and gives them combinations of slow rolling steps. They pass their weight back and forth in turns and pivots, first one supporting, then the other, as they drift across the floor. Eponine stands across the studio and shouts out corrections. She keeps herself separate.

Cosette masters the choreography more slowly than Marius: her training, although comprehensive, paid little attention to modern dance technique, and Cosette is such an airy dancer by nature that asking her to sink her weight into the floor and support another body seems bizarre and unnatural. It’s all Eponine can do to help Cosette both learn the steps and execute them correctly, although Cosette never seems bothered by Eponine’s endless corrections.

“You’re kidding,” Cosette laughs when Eponine stops them in the middle of a run-through, something odd catching her eye. “Whatever it was, it was Marius’ fault.”

“Maybe,” Eponine says, distracted. “Go back a little—take it from the Isaac Newton, please.” In the absence of formal ballet terms for many steps they’ve had to invent their own names, and _Isaac Newton_ is the name they’ve given to a sweeping, advance-and-recede movement, which finishes with Marius catching Cosette in a swinging lift and using her momentum to pull them both to the floor. Eponine watches carefully as Marius and Cosette go through the steps, and—there. “Cosette,” she says. “Watch out for your feet, you’re—what are you doing?” Cosette performs the step again, and this time Eponine catches the odd moment cleanly. “Just as you finish, you’re flexing your foot as you come out of the lift.”

Cosette frowns and looks at Marius for confirmation; he shrugs. She slides her foot along the floor, mimicking the path it would take, and frowns again. “I can feel it. I’m not sure why I’m doing it.”

Eponine pauses, replays the moment in her mind, considers. “ _Il le faut, je suis chevalier_ ,” she sings under her breath to help herself think. “It’s just like landing any other lift,” she finally says. “I think going to the floor is what’s throwing you off. You’re flexing your foot like you’re trying to grip the floor, like it’ll give you extra stability, but it won’t. You feel like you’re falling, but you’re not, because Marius has most of your weight, if he’s doing his job.” Cosette smiles, and Marius looks abashed. “Trust Marius. He’s got you, right?”

“Of course,” Marius says, and pats Cosette on the shoulder. Cosette looks a little startled, and Eponine understands the feeling: aside from partnering in class and rehearsal, and aside from Courfeyrac, Marius tries to avoid touching other humans.

“Good,” Eponine says, clapping her hands, and when they try again Cosette’s foot is much improved.

The weeks pass. They’re all busy with other classes and rehearsals, but Eponine looks forward to “her” twice-weekly rehearsals more than anything else. Marius and Cosette also seem to enjoy their rehearsals, despite Eponine’s amateurish coaching style. Marius especially becomes calmer as the weeks pass—he’s quiet as ever, but merely still instead of frozen, although he never openly welcomes an approach. Cosette must sense the tension between Eponine and Marius, but is staying quiet for now—assuming, Eponine realizes one day, that there’s any real tension at all beyond her own wretched hope for a connection. Still, the weeks pass in relative serenity; even Gillenormand seems to be ignoring them, and outside of his scrutiny Eponine feels as free as she can feel, spending as much time with Marius and Cosette as she does. She tries to ignore it, for the most part. Rehearsal is more important.

Eponine decides to take a walk in the Luxembourg one Sunday near the middle of their rehearsals, tired of shuttling back and forth between the studio and her small apartment. It’s cool enough outside that the gardens aren’t quite as crowded as they could be, but pairs and trios of people still amble up the shaded walks and cluster around the fountain. She wanders by herself for a while, enjoying the anonymity of public solitude, then finds a bench under a large tree and sits. There’s a bank of tall red flowers across the walk—she’s never been good with plants, and isn’t sure what kind.

“May I sit?” a voice says behind her. Eponine jumps and gasps, then relaxes when she sees Cosette.

“You’re in the habit of startling me,” Eponine says, gesturing to the bench. Cosette sits. She has one of the red flowers tucked into her hair. “Are you here with Marius?”

“And Courfeyrac,” Cosette says slowly. “Showing up unannounced at their apartment often means you get the both of them.”

“Oh.” Eponine isn’t sure how to respond to that. “Are those hollyhocks, do you think?” she asks, gesturing at the red flowers. “We had ’em in the garden growing up, but I never thought to ask, and it wasn’t like we planted them, they just grew. That seems like it should mean something—they grew like lightning, like nothing I’ve ever seen, but I can’t think what, I can’t.”

“Female ambition,” Cosette says. Eponine, runaway train of thought cut off, looks at her. “In the language of flowers, hollyhock symbolizes female ambition. Or fecundity. My father is a horticulturalist,” she explains, “and you would not believe how many people want their gardens to be symbolic of something or other.” Cosette fidgets with her skirt, draws a line in the gravel with the toe of her boot. “Eponine,” she begins, “Eponine, I want to apologize.”

“Apology accepted,” Eponine says automatically, then, “wait, what?”

“In our rehearsals,” Cosette says. “You seem so distant sometimes, and I realized I shouldn’t have pushed you into making this piece if you didn’t want to do it. I’m sorry.”

“I do want to do this,” Eponine says. “I might not have acted without you, or, then, maybe I would have, I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. Maybe you put the idea into my head, but you couldn’t make me go through with it, not if I didn’t want to. But I _do_ want to do this, and don’t start thinking you could’ve made me if I didn’t.”

“You definitely seem to enjoy getting on my case in rehearsal,” Cosette says, faux-contemplative. “You know what I think? I think,” she whispers, leaning forward, “you just wanted a chance to boss me around.”

Eponine leans forward as well, matching Cosette. This close, Cosette’s deep brown eyes are shot through with hazel, and her nose is pinked from the sun. “I wouldn’t need to boss you around if you could keep your feet under control,” she says, keeping her voice low and somber even though it wants to crack with mirth.

“Unfair,” Cosette says. “My rehearsal coach is a tyrant. She beats me. I’m terribly unhappy, and all you care about is my feet? Shame, Ponine, shame.” She presses a hand to her cheek and pouts, eyes wide and limpid.

“Oh, hush,” Eponine says. That last barb, though clearly meant jokingly, had hit a little too close, had brought up too many inadvertent comparisons to her mother.

“Fine,” Cosette says, tone light, “be that way.” Silence descends on their bench, not quite awkward, but just on the edge on discomfort, as though one misplaced word could shatter their fragile peace, just as the right gesture could seamlessly strengthen the bonds between them. A group of children passes by, a young couple with their dog, a few joggers. A light wind brushes through the trees; they cast shifting sun-dappled shadows on the hollyhocks, which sway in counterpoint, flowers hanging like tattered flags. The sun appears and disappears behind clouds, and as the slow soft oscillations of light wash over her, Eponine feels herself relax, feels the quiet between her and Cosette grow peaceful. “ _Et je pars pour la Palestine_ ,” she hums, lets it float up on the breeze and disappear behind the clouds.

“Why did you leave?” Eponine asks, not planning the words before she finds them leaving her mouth. “The school. I know it was horrible for you, I’m glad you got out, but you were just gone one day, and I never found out what happened.” She’d heard her father shouting through the wall that night, furious at the loss of Cosette’s tuition money; she and Azelma had huddled closer in their shared bed and stayed quiet.

“My mother died,” Cosette says, flat. “My father—well, he’s not my father, biologically, but he took custody and raised me—he enrolled me in a different ballet school.”

“I’m sorry,” Eponine says. “About your mother.”

“Don’t be. She was sick for a long time,” Cosette says. “And Papa enrolled me in L’ école Petit Picpus—we called all our teachers Soeur, because the building used to be a convent, did you know? But it was a long time ago, and now I have my papa, and this job, and you and Marius and so many other friends. It’s all right.” Neither of them are looking at each other, but out of the corner of her eye Eponine sees Cosette straighten up. “But you’re right,” she says, “it was horrible.”

“I can only imagine,” Eponine says. She laughs a little, although nothing’s funny, and hunches her shoulders, her arms crossing over her torso.

Cosette turns and grabs Eponine’s shoulders. “Eponine,” she says, “you were _there_.”

Eponine stills for a moment, forces herself to let the words sink in before she responds with the first thing that comes to her tongue. “There’s one day I remember,” she says finally. “We were about eight, practicing petite allegro, and my mother…she wouldn’t let you dance. Every time you tried to take a turn, she’d tell you to go to the back of the class, that you were too stupid and clumsy to do the exercise.” Eponine doesn’t add that, at the time, she’d laughed until her stomach ached at Cosette’s stricken expression. “She finally told you to go stand in the hall because you were too useless to teach. When class was over you were still standing there. You weren’t even sitting down.”

Cosette makes a small noise. Her cheeks are dark, and a few flyaway strands of hair are stuck to her forehead with sweat. “I remember that,” she says. “Sometimes she’d just ignore me, and that was better, but I never knew day to day which it was going to be. But, what I meant was, it wasn’t just me she was horrible to. It was you, too.” Her grip on Eponine’s shoulders is tight, her eyes urgent, and Eponine finds her hands grabbing Cosette’s forearms and holding on, steadying herself as much as Cosette.

She can’t meet Cosette’s eyes, she can’t stop her lower lip quivering, and tears begin burning down her cheeks faster than she can blink them away. Her stomach is hurting again. “It’s fine,” Eponine chokes, “no, really, she was my mother, that’s just how she was, but it was worse for you, I’m sure, I am. She was my _mother_.”

“Oh, Eponine,” Cosette says, and abruptly they’re embracing, a rough, hasty, thing, over before Eponine can register more than the flat planes of Cosette’s back under her palms. She turns away, trying to wipe away her tears on the back of her hand. She’d feel embarrassed, but Cosette is doing the same.

“Thank you,” Eponine says eventually.

“For what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You can take your pick, I’m sure. Being here, talking to me, dancing in my piece.”

“Doing weird things with my feet,” Cosette says, still a little scratchy but clearing rapidly.

“I will never thank you for that,” Eponine says. “You’re not a lark, you’re a _duck_.”

Cosette huffs a laugh. “Well, while you’re feeling well-disposed towards me, and since we’re already talking about our uncomfortable past lives, I need to ask. Marius,” she says, and the bottom drops out of Eponine’s stomach. “Do you and he have…a history?”

All the warmth of the afternoon, all the gentle teasing and shared tears, all the tentative happiness and companionship—all that is gone, leaving Eponine sitting on a hard bench on a chilly afternoon while a woman she barely knows prods the tenderest, most guarded places in her soul. Some of this must show on her face, because Cosette’s eyes widen and she raises her hands, palms out.

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “That was none of my business, please forget I asked,” but Eponine finds that she wants to tell Cosette, that she needs to make Cosette understand.

“He was supposed to be _mine_ ,” she bites out. A small part of her, numb and detached, is shocked at the bitterness in her own voice. “We were supposed to be like you are, like the way the two of you dance together, and then everyone would, they’d, they’d pay attention to me. They’d know how good I am, when they saw us together. And then I hurt my back, a stress fracture, and Marius didn’t, we never…it never happened.” She trails off. Out in the air, the words of her secret longing, cradled and nurtured for so long, only sound petulant, selfish. “So, no,” she continues, “Marius and I do not have any kind of history. I only wish we did. I’m sorry,” she says, feeling like a child. “You did ask.”

“I did,” Cosette says slowly. “I’m sorry too. I’m not going to apologize for my relationship with Marius, but it must be hard for you to work with us every day, and I’m sorry you have to go through that.”

“Oh, well, it’s not that bad,” Eponine says. She’s lying more than a little, but Cosette isn’t to know. “And it’s good, I suppose, that you found each other,” she continues, forcing the words out, though each one feels like it’s burning her throat as she pronounces it. “It’s good to have someone who loves you.”

Cosette opens her mouth to respond, then pauses, thoughtful. “Eponine,” she says after a moment, “do you think Marius and I are dating, in addition to dancing together?”

“Aren’t you?”

Cosette laughs, like she understands a joke that Eponine doesn’t. “ _No_. I love Marius dearly, and I love dancing with him, so in a sense I suppose you’re right. But romance…well. For one thing, I’m gay.” Cosette smiles, but over her own shock Eponine catches Cosette’s sidelong, uncertain, glance.

“I’m bi,” Eponine offers, like a trade, and Cosette relaxes.

“For another, I don’t want to gossip,” Cosette continues, and that is a _lie_ , Cosette, Joly, and Bossuet are the worst gossips in the company, and everyone knows it, “but I suspect that Marius has feelings for someone else.”

Eponine lets out a breath. This afternoon has been far too full of dredged-up memories and painful confrontations. “I think I’ve had about all of this conversation I can handle,” she says. “Won’t Marius and Courfeyrac be wondering where you are?”

“They’re over at the end of the walk,” Cosette says, pointing, and when Eponine looks she sees two distant figures, heads bent, mid conversation. Cosette hesitates. “I understand if you’d rather be by yourself, but you’re welcome to join us if you’d like. I’m about ready for dinner, and Courfeyrac is always hungry.”

Eponine expects to feel reluctant, but the feeling is missing—only the last in a long line of strange things about this afternoon. “I’d love to,” she says, and feels an answering burst of delight when Cosette’s eyes light with happiness.

“Excellent!” Cosette says, springing to her feet. She plucks the flower from her hair and tucks it behind Eponine’s ear, fingers light and swift. “There, that looks better on you.”

“Come on,” Eponine says, “let’s catch up with them,” and they set off down the path together.

* 

“All right,” Eponine says one blustery Tuesday afternoon, a warm summer thunderstorm blowing through Paris and whipping the Seine into whitecaps. “Today we’re going to learn a lift.”

Thus far, the piece has no true lifts. There are moments when either Marius or Cosette supports the other’s weight entirely, but those moments are fluid and over quickly, more transitions from one step to another. The lift Eponine has in mind isn’t difficult, but compared to the solid, grounded, tone of the piece so far it should be dramatically different, the climax of the entire dance.

Eponine pulls Marius to the center of the studio. “Marius, your job is to catch Cosette,” she says. “Cosette, you have the hard part. You’re going to, well, I think _dive_ is the best verb? Dive headfirst up to Marius’ shoulder, so you land on your side just above your hipbone.” She indicates on her own body. “Does that make sense?”

“You’re going to have to show us this one,” Marius says, and Cosette nods in agreement.

“Sure,” Eponine says. She backs up and shakes out her arms to conceal her nervousness. “Ready, Marius?” she asks, and when he nods she takes a few running steps and leaps up to his shoulder, her body a long, flat, line. Marius’ hands come immediately to her waist, hot through her leotard and t-shirt. He steps backwards as her momentum is transferred to him, but easily regains his balance and slides her back to the ground. Marius really is an absurdly good partner, Eponine thinks with a pang, blood rushing in her ears.

“Do you see?” she asks Cosette.

“I see, I want to try,” Cosette answers, fearless as ever, and backs away in preparation. Too far, it turns out, because she builds up too much speed and nearly knocks Marius over when she leaps. He huffs a startled breath and they hover for a moment, Marius’ feet planted wide as he fights to keep Cosette from pitching headfirst off his shoulder. Eponine resists the urge to step closer and help—Marius and Cosette are professionals, and adding a third body to the tangle will almost certainly get one of them hurt. Sure enough, Marius rights himself a moment later and lowers Cosette back to the floor. She spins away and careens into Eponine, throwing an arm over her shoulder to steady herself.

“Are you all right?” Marius asks, stricken, and Eponine is grateful because it means that she doesn’t have to say anything. She feels like she’s been thrown from Marius’ arms into Cosette’s, and is abruptly dizzy again.

“Fine,” Cosette says, and squeezes Eponine’s arm. “I think I may have taken a few years off Eponine’s life, though.”

“Maybe a little less enthusiastic next time,” Eponine manages. Her voice is hoarse and breathy, and Cosette shoots her a concerned look but doesn’t comment. Cosette pats her arm once more before moving away. Eponine would like nothing more than to send them home for the day, using the time to clear her own head, but they still have 45 minutes of studio time left and she can’t afford to waste it. “Try it again,” she says, and prepares herself for a long rehearsal.

They finish the piece next rehearsal, staying late to finish. Just in time: the performance is in ten days. Eponine orders one last run-through, just to cement the choreography before they leave for the evening, and Cosette and Marius obey. Eponine stops them before they’ve danced more then a few steps, though—there will be time for stylistic corrections later, but something’s bothering her.

“It’s not quite right, the feel of it. It should feel like drowning,” she says, knowing that’s abstract and unhelpful. Sure enough, Cosette looks confused, but Marius is standing very straight, his eyes shocked and alert, and when they begin again he has the expression exactly right.

“It’s good,” Marius says to Eponine as they leave the studio.

“Thanks,” is all Eponine says in reply, but something eases between them.

That night, Eponine is lying in bed on the edge of sleep, half trying to clear her mind and drift away and half running through her choreography over and over, when her phone buzzes and lights the room dull blue. She groans and buries her head in her pillow: she hadn’t been trying to sleep, not seriously, but now that she’s been interrupted she wants nothing more. She raises her head and gropes for the phone. This late, it’s either Gavroche with some harebrained excuse for why he can’t go to school tomorrow, or Montparnasse asking if he can come over. If Gavroche, she’ll enjoy laughing at whatever he’s come up with, and if Montparnasse she’ll enjoy swearing at him, so it’s a win either way. And then she can go back to bed.

It’s not Gavroche or Montparnasse.

Instead, a string of texts from an unknown number unspool across her screen, and Eponine’s heart starts to pound as she reads them.

_DON’T FREAK OUT but I’m with marius in the ER_

_I don’t know what happened but I think he broke some ribs  
_

_HE’S FINE_

_sorry this is cosette, I got your # from courf, he’s here too_

Eponine’s first thought is to wonder how she’d never given her number to Cosette before this. She’s interrupted by her phone lighting up again:

_we’ll talk about the piece after class tomorrow. don’t worry_

Eponine sets her phone back on her bedside table and just breathes for a moment. If Marius has hurt himself this badly, there’s no way the piece can be performed—there’s no understudy for his part, and ten days is hardly enough time to rehearse a replacement, even if Gillenormand would allow it. Panic wells up within her, thick and viscous, and clots in her throat; she forces it back down and flops back on the bed, lightheaded. She lies there for a long time, until the worry and exhaustion blend together and, to her surprise, she wakes the next morning from a deep, dead, sleep, free of dreams.

When Eponine arrives at morning class, she immediately spies Cosette sitting in a corner and runs over. Cosette looks dim and tired, her cheeks pale and eyes drooping. “Thank goodness,” Cosette says as Eponine drops down beside her. She puts a foot in Eponine’s lap. “Stretch my feet, please?”

Eponine picks up Cosette’s foot, one hand on her heel and the other gripping around the arch. She digs her thumbs into the fascia along the bottom of Cosette’s foot and bends it into a point. “Okay,” she says after a minute. “What happened last night?”

Cosette rubs at her eyes. “I’m not really sure. I know Marius was out with Courfeyrac and some of the others, and there was an accident—Courfeyrac said something about police? And Marius ended up in the ER with a broken collarbone. He asked Courfeyrac to call me, so that’s why I was there, but neither of them wanted to tell me any more.”

“Jesus.” To give herself time to think, Eponine reverses her grip on Cosette’s foot and flexes it, stretching the calf. Some sharp emotion is roiling in her gut, and when she prods it she realizes that she’s jealous, although she can’t decide whether she’s jealous of Cosette, for being wanted at Marius’ side, or of _Marius_ , for having Cosette’s attention. “That’s awful,” she finally says, completely inadequately.

“You’re telling me. Courfeyrac made me leave after a while, but he stayed to take Marius home. I don’t think he slept all night.” Cosette gestures across the studio. Courfeyrac is slumped at the barre, stretching. He looks up at Cosette’s movement and greets them with an approximation of his usual wave and grin, but his movements are sluggish and there are tired bruises under his eyes.

“Ouch,” Eponine says. Cosette pulls her foot away and presents the other one. She looks so tired and upset, head resting against the mirror like she can’t be bothered to hold it up, that Eponine squeezes her knee in comfort before beginning on her foot. “It’ll be all right. Assuming there are no complications, a broken collarbone isn’t a career-ending injury. We won’t be able to perform at the gala, but he’ll be all right, and you’ll still be able to dance together when it heals.”

Cosette lifts her head and opens her eyes wide. “Eponine, that’s not why I’m upset. I mean, yes, this is awful, but you’re right, Marius will heal.” Cosette takes Eponine’s hands and squeezes them tight. “I’m upset for you. Choreographing this piece, this was supposed to be a huge thing for you, and with Marius hurt…there’s no way we’ll be able to find someone else. And that’s horrible for you, and that’s why I’m upset.”

Eponine looks down at their joined hands, feeling a glow of warmth spread through her. It’s not enough to overcome her own crushing disappointment—this was supposed to be her chance, this was supposed to _fix things_ —but the pain is cut with sweetness now.

“Well,” she says, and lets go. Better, having savored that sweetness, to end it before it’s taken away. “Thank you. I think class is starting.” She turns aside to put on her pointe shoes.

“We can talk more after,” Cosette says, although aside from making sure Gillenormand knows the piece won’t be performed Eponine doesn’t know what else they have to talk about. She finishes tying her pointe shoes and heads to the barre.

Eponine spends most of class watching Cosette. She pays attention to her own dancing, of course, but finds her eyes drawn to Cosette over and over. Cosette seems equally distracted, but she’s not watching Eponine in turn. Instead, she dances very tentatively, technically correct but absent somehow, like she’s not paying attention to what she’s doing—very out of character for Cosette, who dances all the time like she’s onstage and can cross the whole studio in three leaps despite her tiny frame. But at the very end of class, just when Eponine is starting to worry, Cosette lights up again. The next combination is a grand allegro, and Cosette bounds across the floor like the studio has no walls, like she’s going to leap out the window and through the streets and into the Seine. And Eponine follows without even thinking, flings herself into space after Cosette, and at the height of her final grand jeté she feels all the agony of the last two months float away from her and not follow her back to the ground.

After class the company streams off the dance floor in ones and twos to pick up their bags, chattering and laughing, off to whatever lesson or rehearsal they have next. Eponine doesn’t look for Cosette, but Cosette comes bouncing over anyway, looking far too full of energy for someone who just took one of Basque’s technique classes on far too few hours of sleep.

“I figured it out,” Cosette says, “I figured it out, we can still perform even without Marius, it’s going to be fine.”

Eponine stares. “What are you talking about?” she finally says. “There’s no one else who can dance, not in two weeks. It’s all right, Cosette.”

“Yes, there is!” Cosette exclaims. Around them, a few of the other dancers are giving them sidelong looks, but Cosette ignores them. “You! There’s no reason this piece has to be danced by a man and a woman. You know Marius’ part—obviously, since you invented it—and with a few changes it wouldn’t be hard to adapt his part for you.”

“It will never work,” Eponine says, but it’s a feeble protest with no heart behind it.

“It _will_. Let’s just try, really fast, right here, come on,” Cosette says, and takes a few steps towards the center of the studio, and Eponine, as usual, can’t help but give in.

It’s rough. Of course it’s rough—for all Eponine has rehearsed the steps alone in her apartment, memorizing them for the next day’s rehearsal, and for all she’s coached Cosette and Marius for these long weeks, she’s never performed the piece all the way through. She stumbles more than once, misses connections with Cosette a few times and crashes into her a few more, and once she has to stop entirely and, face flushed, ask Cosette what Marius does next—she’s completely forgotten. Cosette adapts fairly well, although she’s obviously used to dancing the weight-bearing steps with someone who is taller and who weighs more than Eponine, and they fumble awkwardly at each other before Cosette learns to compensate.

It’s rough, but it doesn’t matter. Under all the stumbles and missed steps and pauses there’s something _good_ about the way they dance together, something easy and true that’s more than Eponine already knowing Marius’ part. Cosette feels it too: about halfway through the piece she gives Eponine a startled look, and then they’re flying, spiraling into each other and away again like eddies in a river, not always touching but always together, flowing side by side to the same end.

Until they come to the lift. Eponine stops dancing, breathing hard. “I don’t think I can lift you,” she says. “I’m not sure my back can handle it.”

“Then I’ll lift you,” Cosette says, like it’s that simple, and spreads her arms. “Just try.”

What the hell. Eponine takes a few running steps and throws herself into the lift’s strange leaping dive, aiming for a spot over Cosette’s right shoulder and kicking her legs up into double passé as hard as she can. Cosette’s hands close around her hips, and Eponine has time for one moment of joyful vertigo before Cosette lets Eponine’s momentum spin her around and bring Eponine to the floor again.

Eponine lands a little heavily, and Cosette looks shocked that they managed it at all—an expression that must be mirrored on Eponine’s own face—but it doesn’t matter, because it worked, they can dance the piece together and perform it after all, and before Eponine knows what she’s doing she’s stepping forward and hugging Cosette as hard as she can.

Cosette shrieks a little with surprise, but she sounds happy, and her arms come up to embrace Eponine immediately, so it’s all right. Cosette’s heart is pounding hard against Eponine’s own, and over the rush of her breath Eponine hears Courfeyrac’s excited whoop just before the rest of the company, lined up watching in front of the mirror, bursts into applause.

“This is going to work,” Cosette says against Eponine’s shoulder.

Eponine steps away, but keeps hold of Cosette’s arms. “It will work,” she says. She can’t stop smiling.

Cosette turns away first. “All right, loafers, show’s over,” she says, walking back to the mirror. Bahorel offers a high five, which Cosette returns with enthusiasm.

“Don’t you all have jobs?” Eponine asks, following. A thought occurs to her, one that might have crushed her ten minutes ago, but after dancing with Cosette she feels unstoppable. “Cosette,” she calls, and Cosette turns away from accepting Prouvaire’s compliments. “What are we going to tell Gillenormand?”

Cosette’s face hardens; her mouth sets in a small frown of resolve. “Leave him to me,” she says. “Gillenormand is not going to be a problem.” She turns and marches out of the studio, not bothering to collect her bag or put on street clothes over her tights, and Eponine almost feels sorry for Gillenormand, who has no idea what’s about to hit him. Almost.

Eponine doesn’t see Cosette for the rest of the day. She considers texting to ask for updates—she’d never wanted to text Cosette before, but now that it’s an option she finds the idea hard to ignore—but decides to let Cosette work on Gillenormand uninterrupted. And sure enough, Cosette tracks her down the next day just as she’s about to leave the studio for lunch.

“Success!” Cosette says without preamble. Eponine feels a little dizzy with relief. “We can still perform, it’s all fine, and you’re supposed to talk to Basque about scheduling for the dress rehearsal next week.”

“What can you have said to him?” Eponine asks.

“I just asked nicely,” Cosette says, eyes wide and innocent, and Eponine snickers. Cosette waits a moment, then laughs as well. “I convinced him that it would make him look good, that’s all.”

Cosette’s hold over Gillenormand is a strange and terrifying thing, Eponine thinks, and she’s absolutely sure that Cosette hasn’t told her everything. It hadn’t taken long—a few hours, maybe—for word to go around the company that Marius was back in his grandfather’s good graces following his injury, and Eponine suspects Cosette may have asked Marius to intervene on their behalf. “Well, that’s wonderful, it is,” she says.

“It is,” Cosette agrees. “Back to rehearsal tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Eponine says. “We’ll need to schedule a few extra as well, if we can.”

“We will,” Cosette says.

The next ten days pass in a blur of frantic rehearsing. Eponine and Cosette squeeze in practice time whenever they can, arriving early and staying late. They steal away to rehearse in the half hours between classes, in empty studios and hallways and, once, on a near-empty platform of the Chatelet-Les-Halles metro station late at night, their street shoes scuffling and echoing as they trip through a tricky sequence of steps, the few other travellers pretending to ignore them. Eponine boards her train that night filled with exhausted satisfaction, watches Cosette on the platform before the train speeds away, and falls asleep as soon as she flops into bed.

The piece takes shape again. There are a few changes that have to be made for practicality’s sake: shifts in weight and timing, adjustments to position and blocking, as Cosette gets used to dancing with Eponine instead of Marius and Eponine learns with her muscles the steps she knows so well with her mind. They show the piece to Gillenormand when it’s still half reconstructed—a meeting that would have paralyzed Eponine two months ago, but now she can’t even care, can’t even imagine a world where Gillenormand doesn’t approve. She barely notices when Gillenormand gives his permission to perform.

It all comes together quickly—remarkably quickly, Eponine sometimes thinks, and knows that half the reason this is working at all is because of Cosette, Oh, not that Eponine doesn’t have the drive to move mountains all on her own, but it helps, it helps more than she wants to admit, to have Cosette pulling in harness beside her. 

And once she’s let that thought escape, she can’t keep Cosette out of her head—Cosette’s luminous presence and ready laugh, her strange sad smile, happier now but still tinted with sorrow, and the way she never stops working, always pushes Eponine to be just that much better.

She wants Cosette, Eponine can acknowledge that much now, might even love her a little, might love her more with each rehearsal, each time she finds Cosette waiting for her at the studio, each lingering press of Cosette’s body against hers, each time she leaps and Cosette catches her, each time they slouch out of the studio together at the end of the day, tired and achy and exhilarated.

And soon the performance is only five days away, and Eponine is caught up in a whirl of stage lights and music cues. She’s been so focused on rehearsal that she’d almost forgotten that the piece would be performed on an actual _stage_. She outlines her vague ideas for lighting to the lighting director, an unflappable woman called Musichetta, and lets Musichetta translate her uninformed mumblings into a viable lighting plan with relief before tumbling off to talk to the costume master. Eponine settles on simple white cotton for both of them, a thigh-length shift for Cosette and a tank top and shorts for herself, and scuttles back to the studio feeling inadequate. Cosette just smiles, and they get back to work. The dress rehearsal passes in one frantic afternoon, and the night of the performance arrives before Eponine has time to wish that it might arrive slower.

Eponine and Cosette are performing near the middle of the evening’s program. Gillenormand’s regard hadn’t extended far enough to allow them to either open or close the performance, and Eponine is grateful for the snub. Not only is the piece too melancholy to open the show and too subdued to close it, she doesn’t think she could stand the pressure.

Backstage is never deserted—there are always stagehands managing lights and curtains, and dancers getting underfoot as they wait for their entrances—but the wing where Cosette and Eponine wait for the piece preceding theirs to finish is empty but for them.

“Breathe,” Cosette says, and Eponine exhales sharply, inhales again.

“Thanks,” she says. She’s twisting her hands in the hem of her tank top and it’s going to get creases; she forces herself to rest her hands flat against her thighs. Beside her, Cosette fusses with her hair, gelled back in a severe ponytail. She makes a face, yanking on the ponytail to tighten it, then loosens it again. “Can you dance with your hair down? Will that mess you up?” Eponine asks.

“It’s a little late for last-minute style changes,” Cosette says, but pulls her hair down anyway and scrunches her fingers through it with a look of relief. “I can manage if you can.”

The dance currently holding the stage ends, and the stage lights fade to black. When they rise again, the audience applauding and the other dancers taking their bows, Cosette is looking at Eponine, hair falling in disordered waves. Half-lit by the stage’s glow, Cosette is achingly beautiful.

“Cosette, I want-” Eponine says, and steps forward. The lights go out again; the applause dies away. It’s time for their entrance. In the dark of the wing, Eponine kisses Cosette’s cheek as soft as she can, the powdery smell of stage makeup thick in her nose. Cosette leans forward just a little, the smallest startled exhale puffs near Eponine’s ear, and they break apart. They step together into the empty blackness of the stage, the waiting murmur of the shadowy audience surrounding them, and the lights rise.

Later, Eponine will only remember snatches of that performance. A moment when she stumbled; a pale face watching from the wings, half-glimpsed and unrecognizable behind the blinding lights; the whip of Cosette’s hair into her mouth and Cosette’s quick look of apology; Eponine’s fingers skidding over the smooth fabric of Cosette’s shift; the taste of her own sweat on her lips. Cosette is the constant in her ragged scraps of memory, and they move against and around each other in the cavernous space and under the cool blue lights. Eponine is drowning, but Cosette is drowning with her and they drag each other down together and hurtle together back to the surface, limbs tangled and lungs gasping. And when the piece ends Eponine lets the roaring applause wash over her, anchored by Cosette’s hand in her own.

A large portion of the noise is coming from backstage, Eponine realizes as she takes a second bow, and when they run into the wings half the company is lined up waiting for them, cheering and clapping and all about to get eviscerated by the stage manager. The company surrounds Eponine and Cosette as soon as they make it off the stage, whispering congratulations. A small hailstorm of hands pat Eponine on the back, and Floreal plants a smacking kiss on her cheek. Cosette is almost knocked over by an overenthusiastic double hug from Joly and Bossuet, but regains her balance, her grip on Eponine’s hand never slacking.

A little apart from the crush stands Marius, one arm in a sling and the other around Courfeyrac’s waist, more relaxed than Eponine has ever seen him. He mouths “good job” when he sees Eponine looking. Courfeyrac waves, a dazed smile on his face.

Eponine understands the feeling. She’s so happy she’s giddy, only respect for the sanctity of backstage silence keeping her from laughing aloud. Cosette tugs on her hand, pulling her towards the stage door and away from the crowd of people. They take the stairs up to the dressing rooms at a jog and then two at a time, and by the time they reach the landing and fumble a dressing room door open they’re running.

They’re kissing almost before they can shut the door behind them, long deep kisses that leave Eponine gasping and Cosette’s chest heaving against Eponine’s, her fingers clutching at Eponine’s arms. Eponine backs Cosette against a dressing table and works her fingers through Cosette’s hair, stiff from the gel and damp with sweat, and Cosette opens her legs and pulls Eponine closer. They’re lucky this dressing room is empty, Eponine thinks faintly, before Cosette’s hands sneak under her tank top and brush over her breasts and she stops thinking altogether.

“Wait,” Cosette says into Eponine’s open mouth, but her hands are still moving under Eponine’s clothes and she kisses Eponine again without saying anything else, like she can’t help it. 

Eponine drops her hands to Cosette’s thighs. “What,” she manages.

Cosette pulls away. Her hair, already mussed from sweat and gel and exertion, is wild and tangled from Eponine’s hands, and a hot blush splotches pink across her collarbones. She’s breathing hard. “This dressing room isn’t going to be empty much longer,” she says.

Eponine kneels, kisses Cosette’s navel through her shift, kisses each hipbone. Cosette thighs quiver under Eponine’s hands; her toes are braced against the floor. “We can be fast,” Eponine says, rubbing her nose against Cosette’s stomach, and smiles when Cosette’s breath quickens.

But Cosette pulls her to her feet, kisses her hard on the mouth. “I want to be slow,” she whispers in Eponine’s ear, and Eponine shivers. “Come on,” Cosette says, “we’re going to sneak into the back of the theater and watch the rest of the performance, and then we’re going to give our friends ten minutes to tease the hell out of us, and then you’re going to take me home.”

Eponine kisses Cosette’s shoulder, right where the blush meets her usual pale skin. “My apartment’s a wreck,” she says when she’s sure of her voice. “Why not yours?”

“Well, I still live with my father. But if you’d _prefer_ …” Cosette says. “Actually, that’s a great idea. Papa would love to meet you. We can all have dinner together, a nice long dinner. He’s harvesting stinging nettles right now and I’m sure he’d love to tell you all about them. My papa never gets tired of talking about nettles—” but Eponine is hauling Cosette up to kiss her, and Cosette is giggling into the kiss, and her body is solid and lithe against Eponine’s.

“My apartment, then,” Eponine says when she’s kissed away Cosette’s giggles, and Cosette’s smile fills her with light.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The title, “Pas d’Ombre”, is from a scene in the ballet La Sylphide. In this scene the hero, James, dances a pas de trois with his mortal fiancée, Effie, and with his true love, an immortal sylph who is invisible to all eyes except James’. It’s a beautiful scene, and you can watch it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylVa_Rx2L3s). Although I’m not trying to map Cosette, Eponine, and Marius too closely onto the roles of James, Effie, and Sylph, I thought the title was very appropriate for the story I was trying to tell. While writing this fic I also found out that “pas d’ombre” also means “no shadow” in French, which means I made a pun in a language I don’t even speak.
> 
> 2\. Okay, you caught me, this was mostly an excuse to fantasy-cast a Les Miserables fic with my favorite ballet dancers. Here’s who I was imagining as I was writing:  
> [Tamara Rojo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLXND8DyZIE) as Eponine  
> [Alina Cojocaru](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqkRs5m8BkI) as Cosette  
> [Francisco Mungamba](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTohvmzKwbI) as Marius  
> [Gonzalo Garcia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MYmUQTssIM) as Courfeyrac
> 
> 3\. The pas de deux Cosette and Marius dance when they first meet is the [bedroom pas de deux](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOyKzJic8AU) from Manon.
> 
> 4\. The two lines Eponine sings are actually sung by her mother in the Brick.


End file.
